


chasing parties

by pasdecoeur



Series: stevetony works [3]
Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-27 15:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21120731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: “Is there such a thing as self-cockblocking?” he asked Bruce miserably one night. He could have been in bed with triplets tonight.Triplets.Bruce glanced dryly at him. “Sure there is, buddy,” he said. “Though most of us just call it getting rejected.”Tony flicked a spoon at his head.“Ow,” Bruce deadpanned, but there was a smile hiding in his eyes. He liked it when Tony didn’t flinch around him, didn’t treat him like he was nuclear waste that needed to be trapped in a lead box and chucked into Mount Doom.“Excuse you, I didn’t getrejected, Banner,” Tony sneered. “I’m sure you have no concept of it, but people actually want to fuck me alot.”“Narcissist. So youvoluntarilydidn’t sleep with… triplets?”“Yeah.”“Jeez, pal, why.”Because Steve looked sad about it was a stupid answer,so Tony paused, thought about it, and then said, “Because Steve looked sad about it.” God inHeaven, what was wrong with hisbrain.





	chasing parties

  
The first time it happened, it was at a trashy party in West Hollywood the Avengers had just saved from being eaten by giant, undead, gorilla-zombies, reanimated by this SFX technician who’d worked on the last Kong movie. (It had flopped. He’d gotten cranky. _Some_ people, god.)

Anyway, all the drunk beautiful people in Calabasas wanted to thank the Avengers, and that’s how they got roped into this shindig — and it was great, it was seriously fun. Thor did body shots with _Sports Illustrated’s_ swimsuit models, Natasha twerked with a tipsy ballerina from the Swedish National Ballet company, Clint constructed a six foot high shot glass pyramid, lit it on fire, and then _drank_ like half of it. And Tony — Tony was in his element, Tony hadn’t had this much fun since the Delta Kappa Phi naked chariot races of MIT in 1989. There were six phone numbers already stuffed into his pants, one of the Chrises had made out with him a little on the back patio, and some hunky European looking dude in nothing but a tight red Speedo was currently telling Tony how _desperately_ he wanted—

About halfway through this, Tony realized that Steve was staring at him.

At them?

No, just at him. His brow was puckered into a worried frown and he looked…

Disappointed. What the fuck.

Tony dragged a hand down the Speedo model’s back. “Give me a second, would you—” _god what was his name_ “—babe?” Tony murmured distractedly, carelessly squeezing his — oh _wow,_ that was such a great ass — and then threaded his way through the crowd to where Steve was sat, all by himself.

“Hey. You okay?”

Steve shrugged. “Sure.”

“Convincing, Rogers.”

Steve shot him a faint smile. “Why do you think Hollywood hates me?” he asked wryly.

Tony had lots of theories on that, but his favourite was along the lines of, an ass that fine shouldn’t belong to a straight man. Not like he was gonna tell Steve that one. Pepper had instituted a swear jar on the Avengers common based off of some Scandinavian road traffic fine model — everytime _Natasha_ called someone a little bitch, she had to put in 78 cents. Every time _Tony_ swore because he’d burned his fingers on the stupid toaster, he had to put in _six thousand dollars_. It was horrible. Tony had no idea what the fine for sexual harassment was, and he definitely didn’t want to find out.

“I’m sure they love you, pretty boy,” he retorted instead. It was hard being snarky at Steve when he looked so down. Like kicking puppies. “You wanna maybe get out of here?”

Steve’s eyes turned huge. His gaze flicked over across the room. “What about, you know—”

“Speedo Guy?”

“I think his name is Karl,” Steve corrected.

“Really?”

Steve frowned at him. “You didn’t know his _name?”_ he demanded, lips gone thin with disapproval.

“It wasn’t his name I needed, princess,” Tony replied smoothly, and grinned when Steve flushed. “Come on, let’s you and I get outta here. Speedo Guy’ll find someone else, I’m sure.”

Steve got up. He was taller than Tony — it was starkly obvious now, as he looked down. Tony felt his throat dry up. Those eyes were dark and huge, and they were fixed intently on him. “Okay,” he said softly. Steve’s voice felt like it was sliding all over him. “Where to?”

“Well.” Tony scratched his jaw. “There’s an In-n-Out fifteen minutes from here, I’m pretty sure.”

Aaaaaaand Steve was frowning again. “In n Out?”

“I could do with a burger. And a shake. They do good shakes.”

“You want to get burgers,” Steve repeated flatly. He looked pissed off now. Seriously, there was no pleasing the man.

“I mean, I’m… flexible? We could find a Domino’s, I guess.”

Steve huffed a tired breath. “No. It’s fine. Burgers sound… fine.” He grabbed his beer and drained it in three long swallows, and Tony watched the bob of his throat, mesmerized. When he put the mug down, his lips were slick and shiny in the neon lights. “Come on,” he said shortly, grabbing his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Great. Tony wasn’t getting laid for sure, _and_ Steve was _cranky_. His night was looking up already.  
————

  
The second time it happened, it wasn’t anything like that. It was practically respectable. The UN Security Council had invited them to a little soirée in Brussels and they’d shown up in style — suits and tuxes and in Natasha’s case, a stunning de la Renta. And then Tony and the British ambassador to who-cared-where got to talking, and as it turned out, she had a Masters in Advanced Mathematics, and she was telling him about some Captain America fansite that had developed a polynomial function to describe the curve of Steve’s ass — while he had his hand on her waist, sure, and her dress had no back, okay, and he had been rubbing slow idly circles at the base of her spine for a minute or so now, possibly, and she was showing no signs that she minded, and in fact, that she felt the exact opposite — when Tony felt his neck prickle and speak of the devil, turned to see _Steve_ walking towards them with a demented little smile.

“Ambassador,” he said. “Do you mind if I borrow Tony for a moment?”

“Only if you bring him right back,” she replied with a quirk of her lips, and Steve nodded before touching Tony’s arm and guiding him away.

They were out on the balcony before Steve actually spoke to him — after a long, heavy pause. “What are you doing?” he asked Tony evenly.

“Right now I’m trying to figure out if you have a head injury.”

“What?”

“_You_ dragged me out here? I assumed — and I know this is nuts, but keep up with me here — I assumed _you_ had something you wanted to talk to me about.”

Steve sighed again. “I meant… I meant what are you doing with her?”

“Her? Who, Amanda?”

Steve nodded.

“Um, mostly I’m trying to do Amanda.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“_Why_?”

“Well, Steven,” Tony said, too-brightly, “when a boy and a girl like each other very much—”

“Tony. That’s not going to make you happier,” Steve said quietly, and Tony stopped breathing. “I don’t know what’s up with you, but— you keep doing this, every time we go somewhere new, and I see the way you look the next morning and it isn’t— this isn’t the answer, don’t you see? This isn’t the solution. There’s someone new at every party, but they never make you happier, Tony, and it’s—”

It was amazing, actually, that Tony was able to speak through the hook that seemed to have lodged into his throat. “Fuck you,” he managed sharply, and Steve went abruptly quiet. “Since when the hell did you become the expert on my happiness? You have no goddamn idea what I— what makes me —”

Tony broke off and Steve said, “Maybe not,” in that quiet, even voice. “Maybe I don’t know what makes you happy.”

_You,_ Tony thought wretchedly. _You make me happy. You complete fucking idiot._ He kept his mouth shut.

“But I know when something isn’t working,” Steve continued. He was gripping Tony’s forearm now. “This isn’t working, okay? Just. If you really like Amanda, that’s— that’s great, but— Ah hell. You know what, I’m just gonna—” And then he was striding away, too fast, like he couldn’t get away from Tony quick enough.

So Tony drained a flute of champagne he snagged from a circulating server and walked back to Amanda.

Who looked a little bemused. 

“Sorry,” Tony said, trying to dredge up his party smile. It was shockingly hard to find. “Some new intel came in on— Well, I actually can’t tell you on whom—”

“You don’t need to do this, Tony,” Amanda cut in.

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to… to get in the middle of whatever you two have going on. Ordinary jealous exes are bad enough, darling — I’m not mad enough to think I could take on the Captain.”

“Jealous— Steve isn’t my _ex!”_ Tony hissed.

Amanda’s smile turned wry. “Are you sure _he_ knows that?”

“Yes! Yes he knows that, Amanda, because he isn’t _bent!”_

“That’s a little homophobic,” Amanda said, frowning, and Tony manfully resisted the urge to hit something.

“I’m not _straight_. I’m about as straight as a crazy straw, this isn’t homophobia, this is what having a functional grasp on _reality_ looks like!”

Amanda squinted at him. “And in the real world, Captain America… _**has**_ to be straight.”

“It’s in the manual,” Tony agreed. Also, his dad hadn’t hated Steve. That had been a pretty solid clue right there, hadn’t it? There was a reason Tony hadn’t come out until more than a decade after Howard bit the dust.

Amanda was staring at him like he’d just mooned a nun. “Good God, I really don’t understand you Americans,” she muttered, and then— _also_ turned around and walked away.

“Rude.” Tony snagged a second champagne flute. Maybe Thor was doing something fun.   
————

  
The problem was —

_the problem was, he couldn’t get Steve out of his head. the problem was, he wanted Steve too much. the problem was, Tony kept setting himself for heartbreak._

_the problem had been around from the start, it hadn’t just begun, it had just gotten much, much worse_

— it _**kept**_ happening. Tony had liked the Bond novels when he was younger. He liked that thing from Goldfinger, the line about how once was happenstance, twice was coincidence but three times was enemy action.

The enemy here being Steve, and the action being the Puppy Eyes Of Instant Debonerification.

It happened at a G8 conference in Tokyo, where Tony had nearly managed to charm an actual, Indian _prince_ into handing over his room keys.

At a peace summit in Warsaw, with the Italian ambassador and her husband 

At the People’s Choice Awards, where Tony and Steve had somehow gotten a nomination for Best Fight Scene, and one of the stunt doubles for Scarlett Johansson wanted to ‘show Tony her moves,’ Holy Jesus Christ.

At an Oscars afterparty, and apparently _more_ than one of the Chrises was, wow, like _seriously_ into him?

At an Atlantean christening ceremony for some kid eleventh in line for the throne, where Namor’s half-octopus cousin kept bringing Tony these fizzy little drinks, and Tony could have _live-actioned_ in his own personal Japanese _sex comic,_ he was really _never_ forgiving Steve for that one.

Tony kept letting it slide. Kept not— not having sex with very pretty, very willing people, and it was seriously melting his brain, which was why, probably, he went to Bruce with his problems even though Bruce was terrible with other people’s problems. He played Mr. Soft and Cuddly for everything it was worth, but the guy was basically the giantest asshole in the world — you could be dying and you wouldn’t squeeze a smidgen of sympathy from that sphincterous bastard.

And still, _still_, Tony found himself curled up pathetically on a couch while the latest party wound down around them — Sif was in town with a contingent from the Asgardian Royal Army, they had defeated a Jabberwocky thingamajig in Bali Hai, apparently Asgardian custom demanded a feast after a victory blah di blah blah shoot him now.

“Is there such a thing as self-cockblocking?” he asked Bruce miserably. He could have been fucking _triplets_ tonight. Immortal. Asgardian. _Triplets_.

Bruce glanced dryly at him. “Sure there is, buddy,” he said. “Though most of us just call it getting rejected.”

Tony flicked a spoon at his head.

“Ow,” Bruce deadpanned, but there was a smile hiding in his eyes. He liked it, when Tony didn’t flinch around him, didn’t treat him like he was nuclear waste that needed to be trapped in a lead box and chucked into Mount Doom.

“Excuse you, I didn’t get _rejected_, Banner,” he sneered. “I’m sure you have no concept of it, but people actually want to fuck me.” He thought about the Chrises. “A lot.”

“Have you Googled Hulk porn, Tony?” Bruce asked him gravely.

“What?! _No!” _Tony hissed.

“There is a _lot_ of Hulk porn,” Bruce said, unfazed, totally Zen. “Like, more than you would think? And some of it is actually quite—”

“This is not about _you_ and your freaky monster dick, dude!” Tony whisper-shrieked.

“Narcissist. So you voluntarily didn’t sleep with… triplets?” Bruce sounded deeply skeptical, which was fair. Tony also felt deeply skeptical about the state of his sanity.

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Jesus Christ, why.”

_Because Steve looked sad about it was a stupid answer,_ so Tony paused, thought about it, and then said, “Because Steve looked sad.” God in Heaven, what was wrong with his brain.

Bruce snickered. Stinky bastard man. “Oh no, that’s so much worse,” he crowed.

“No it isn’t,” Tony said reflexively. And then, with growing dread, “Why is it worse?”

“It’s called being _whipped_,” Bruce told him gleefully.

Tony tossed another spoon at him, with extreme prejudice. Bullshit, he was whipped. He wasn’t even getting laid.  
—————

Things finally came to a head in Gotham, where the Martha Wayne Memorial Foundation was throwing its massive annual fundraiser, except this time Steve had found out Tony had gotten an invite and guilted him into attending. ‘They do really good work, Tony,’ and ‘Isn’t it nice of Mr. Wayne to help out the community like that?’ as if Tony didn’t literally hurl himself bodily at gunrunners, every other day. What the hell was so impressive about Bruce Wayne, anyway, was what Tony was thinking grumpily the whole flight there, until they put down the jet on one of the Manor’s helipads and Tony finally caught sight of the man himself, clad in a gorgeously tailored tux, all clean dark lines and those magnificent shoulders.

Okay, that was… pretty impressive. And Wayne seemed pretty pleased that Tony had turned up, from the way his eyes flicked over Tony and the way his arm slung over Tony’s shoulders, and the fresh glasses of champagne that kept appearing in his hands, and—

Hey, where had Steve gone to? Tony wondered, muzzily. The whole world had acquired a soft glittery golden glow, and when Bruce laughed at the mayor’s joke, Tony could feel the vibration of it rumble through his chest.

He found himself looking up at Wayne again — how was _everyone_ taller than him? — and he must have felt it, because he looked down. His eyes were really an astonishing shade of blue. “Tony,” Wayne murmured, and then he was excusing himself from the rest of his guests. They were in an alcove off a corridor away from the ballroom. It was quieter here, hushed, velvet drapes soaking up the sounds of the party. “Hey, there,” he said softly. “You okay, kid?”

Tony had forgotten the four years Wayne had on him. Their parents had been friends of course, and Tony had been to Gotham any number of times when he was little. Vaguely now, he remembered toddling after Wayne, through long narrow corridors in the Manor. Wayne’s quiet laugh, grabbing Tony’s sticky little hand. The smell of a library, of leather and old books. He had read _James and the Giant Peach_ to him, once, when he was little. Start to finish. Tony had drifted off to sleep, his head in ten-year-old Bruce’s lap, and Bruce had… let him.

Tony touched the back of his neck, tugged him down, and when that didn’t work, reached up, and angled his jaw, and brushed a kiss against his firm and unyielding mouth.

Bruce touched his shoulders and gently held him back. “Kid,” he said again. His eyes were gentle. “What the hell are you doing?”

Tony didn’t know. He really, really didn’t. He was just sick of waiting and wanting and never being able to—

“Tony? You in h— Oh.”

Tony turned to his right, saw Steve entering the corridor. There were two flutes of champagne in his hands. He was very still.

“Steve,” Tony managed, and then his goddamn throat choked out.

“Well, I see I’ve become entirely superfluous to this conversation,” Bruce murmured dryly. He brushed past Steve on his way out, picking one flute out of his unresisting hand and knocking it back in one. Neither Tony nor Steve watched him leave.

“Is that why you agreed to come here tonight?” Steve asked him tightly. “Because of Bruce Wayne?”

_I said yes because you asked. Don’t you know I’ve never said no to you? Haven’t you noticed I don’t know how? Don’t you see me at all?_

“What the hell do you care.”

Steve laughed meanly. “I don’t know,” he said , bitterness in every word. “Christ, I really don’t know. Can I just ask—”

“What.”

“Why him. That’s all I want to know, and then I won’t— I’ll leave this be, I swear to god. Just— why him.”

“Because he’s six foot four and gorgeous and interested? I don’t know, Rogers, I’m not that picky.”

“That’s it?”

Steve probably didn’t mean it that way, didn’t mean for it to sound… derisive. Mocking. Tony knew that was all in his head, all tangled up with repression and desire. But Tony was angry, and a little drunk, and it was hard, just then, to separate those things, so he spat, “Yes. That’s it. You can sneer at it, you can look down your nose from your high fucking horse, you can disapprove all you fucking like—”

“You think I _disapprove?!”_

“Yes! Of course I do, Steve, what the hell else am I—”

“Tony, are you. My god, are you under the impression I’m— I’m some kind of a homophobe?”

“Or just really conservative, how should I—”

“Tony, I’m _gay!”_

“...”

“And I’m not under the impression that homophobia is the sole province of heterosexuals, there’s plenty of self-hatred to go around when the whole world wants to tell you you’re fucked up, but I’m—”

Tony had stopped listening a while ago, and his mouth finally caught up with his brain. “You're _gay?!”_

“You really didn’t know,” Steve murmured.

“How the hell was I _supposed_ to know, you lunatic?” Tony demanded, stalking angrily towards Steve, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You’ve never even _looked_ at another man, the whole time I’ve known you!”

“Well of course I haven’t!” Steve yelled right back. “That’s because I’ve been in—” and he stopped.

“In what?” Tony asked hoarsely. “In what, Steve.”

“You know.”

“No I don’t,” came his immediate reply. “No, I really don’t, because apparently I’ve been missing clues this whole— this _whole time, _so you tell me now, you don’t fuck me around, Steven—”

“I’ve been in love with you,” Steve whispered, all in a rush, words tangling up, coming one on top of the other. “Of course I haven’t looked at anyone else,” and his eyes were green, Tony was realizing was an uneven jolt, like the reactor was malfunctioning, like his chest was being shocked into sinus rhythm, “of course I haven’t. I’ve been in love with you.”

Tony was quiet, because of course Tony was quiet. His head wasn’t working right. And it was into that silence that Steve said, “Anyway. That’s what I — if it seemed like I disapproved, it was because I…”

“You were jealous,” Tony said, wonderingly, in roughly the same tone a little girl would adopt if she ever had the chance to say,_ ‘It’s a unicorn.’_

Steve flinched. It was a minute movement, unnoticeable to anyone who wasn’t really looking.

But Tony was. Tony was drinking him in.

“Don’t— dont do that,” Steve said. His voice was tight and rushed, each syllable coming out clipped and uneven. “You don’t have to reciprocate— That is, I mean to say, I don’t expect you to— I’m trying to— to get over it,” Steve said wretchedly. “I’m trying, I swear I am—”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Tony remarked lightly. There was a hot, bright feeling expanding in his chest, like a star going nova inside his ribs, expanding and heating and brightening, and it felt like he was glowing, like there was light pouring out of his fingertips and his eyes.

“What?” Steve said.

“I said it’d be a shame, is all, if you got over me.”

Steve paused. “Huh?”

“Oh for the love of god,” Tony muttered, and then pushed the idiot into a wall, and kissed him.  
————

  
They surfaced several hours — or possibly six minutes — later.

Steve pulled up, eyes narrowed at Tony, which normally would have been at least a little bit terrifying, if the effect hadn’t been ruined by the way his lips had turned red, and his wrecked hair, and those eyes that had darkened almost all the way to their pale blue edge. “You like me,” Steve said.

“You’re only just figuring this out?” Tony managed. He sounded a little breathless but that couldn’t be helped — _Steve_ had just been _kissing_ him. “Stop looking so smug.”

“You _really_ like me,” Steve murmured to himself. His hand had found Tony’s waist, had somehow managed to ruck up his shirt, and now his thumb was tracing slow lazy circles just above the waistline of his trousers.

“I didn’t sleep with Octogirl; you think I do that for just anybody?”

A delighted smile flickered onto his face, making him look several years younger. “That was for me?” He asks, like a little boy who just had an entire chocolate bunny dumped into his Halloween candy haul.

“Oh my god,” Tony muttered. “Do you want to have sex or not?”

“Yes, but also, like… dinner?”

“If you’re thinking about food,” Tony began to growl, outraged, and Steve tugged him close with an impatient snap of his wrist. And as their hips slotted together, and Tony felt the hard bulge in Steve’s trousers nudge up against his own, his eyes went wide  
and his throat started feeling more than a little parched. “Oh,” he managed.

“Yeah, _oh_. I meant dinner later.” He hesitated. “Like a date. Like, several dates.”

Tony smiled wickedly, and kissed him again, soft this time, on the corner of his kiss-bitten mouth. “A date?” he asked. The movement made their hips grind together, and Steve’s hand turned vice-like on his waist.

“Yeah,” Steve whispered. He sounded a little faint.

Tony rolled their hips together again, sliding one hand down his back, to squeeze that goddamn perfect ass. “You want to woo me, Rogers?”

“I— _nnnngh_, oh god,” he moaned, head thumping heavily against the wall when Tony found the perfect spot on his neck.

“I’d like a date,” he continued, and the roll of his hips had turned into a heavy, slow grind, and Steve was staring at him through dark, heavy-lidded eyes. “But I think there’s something I think we should clear up first.”

“Y— yeah?”

“I don’t need wooing.”

Steve’s brows collapsed together. “Yes, you do. Liking isn’t enough for me. I’m not settling for crumbs, Tony, and you’re crazy if you—”

Tony laughed airlessly. Steve looked so _determined_, it was glorious. “Steven, sugarplum, honeybunch, would you _listen_ to me, for once in your ridiculous—”

“—hey!”

“No, no _hey_, that was rhetorical, hotpants, I’m doing the talking right now—”

“—love of god, do you never get tired of your _voice_—”

“—aha. Ha ha. _No_. Sweetheart,” he murmured, and Steve’s eyes went wide. “Would you listen. I don’t need wooing. Do you understand?”

“You… you…”

“Yeah.” Tony was beginning to smile now, if only because Steve looked like he’d been struck by a stray bolt of lightning. “Guess what.”

“You… Wow. You’re in _deep_.”

“Yeah, Yeah.” He kissed the tip of Steve’s nose, because it was there, and Tony loved it. “I love you too, Spangles, no tentacles and all. C’mon. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Their first date, Steve picks a seafood restaurant and stabs at the calamari so hard it splinters the plate. Tony laughs until he cries. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
Find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur


End file.
